This invention relates to an apparatus and method for forming castle battlements and villages in damp sand or orther similr type material.
Small man-made mounds of sand often seen on the beach are commonly referred to as sand castles. They are usually made with utensils meant for other purposes, such as butter knives, spatulas, popsicle sticks, and empty cans. Forming castles with a modest amount of detail requires a skilled practitioner and an ample amount of time. Even then the castles are formed without battlements on the walls and towers of the castle which are perhaps its most outstanding features.
The battlements of such a castle comprise a parapet which is a breast-high wall of earth or stone which shields the castle troops from enemy fire. Notches or slots are formed in the parapet, often spaced apart evenly, called embrasures or crenelles. The portion of the parapet left between the crenelles are called merlons. The walkway behind the parapet is known as a banquette. When building battlements by hand, each merlon must be formed individually requiring great care to insure even spacings. Often, cracks in the sand and crumbling occurs when one attempts to form the banquettes, etc. by hand. Even when container-like molds are used, sand sticks in the corners of the mold and in small hollows meant to form the merlons. Consistently good battlements can not be constructed in this manner.
Constructing the walls and towers of sand is no problem for skilled and unskilled practitioners alike, but the addition of parapet walkways and battlements on those walls and towers is difficult because of the problems discussed above.
An example of the type of sand castle formed on beaches without the use of my invention is illustrated in a photograph appearing in the Tuesday, Sept. 6, 1977 Philadelphia Inquirer at page 2-B . The caption discloses that an 8 foot, 1 inch high castle was built in the sand. It included thirty-three floors, 1,637 windows, 84 doors and 752 stair steps. It took 17 hours to build.
Examples of molds for making battlement-like structures along with castle walls and towers is illustrated in French Pat. No. 1,402,024. FIG. 3 shows a container-like casting made from molds like those shown in FIGS. 1 and 2.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,351,885 (Summerfeld) describes a casting frame, cores for window openings, a detailed member of a building, a drawing or picture of the drawing, and the material for casting. Here, the structure to be cast is made up within a casting frame by placing casting parts or cores over appropriate parts of the drawing. Then the casting material is added.
Besides castles and battlements, other buildings and structures could be modeled in miniature in damp sand. However, villages such as feudal European farming villages were built in clusters with buildings made close together having common walls. The buildings or structures were rarely uniform in shape or design. Creating such fine detail to give a village effect in damp sand would require practiced skill and a great deal of time.